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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, November 12, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, November 12, 2012Popular ReleasesAX 2012 Custom Operating Units: AXPOM (beta): This is beta version of the tool. There are some known issues that will be fixed in the next upcoming release.????: ???? 1.0: ????Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office: Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office: Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office ??? ?????、Unicode IVS?????????????????Unicode IVS???????????????。??、??????????????、?????????????????????????????。EXCEL??、??、????????：DataPie（??MSSQL 2008、ORACLE、ACCESS 2007）: DatePie3.4.2: DatePie3.4.2Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.74: fix for issue #18836 - sometimes throws null-reference errors in ActivationObject.AnalyzeScope method. add back the Context object's 8-parameter constructor, since someone has code that's using it. throw a low-pri warning if an expression statement is == or ===; warn that the developer may have meant an assignment (=). if window.XXXX or window"XXXX" is encountered, add XXXX (as long as it's a valid JavaScript identifier) to the known globals so subsequent references to XXXX won't throw ...Home Access Plus+: v8.3: Changes: Fixed: A odd scroll bar showing up for no reason Changed: Added some code to hopefully sort out the details view when there is a small number of files Fixed: Where the details toolbar shows in the wrong place until you scroll Fixed: Where the Help Desk live tile shows all open tiles, instead of user specific tiles (admins still see all) Added: Powerpoint Files Filter Added: Print style for Booking System Added: Silent check for the logon tracker Updated: Logon Tracker I...Silverlight 4 & 5 Persian DatePicker: Silverlight 4 and 5 Persian DatePicker 1.5: - Improved DateTime Parser.???????: Monitor 2012-11-11: This is the first releaseVidCoder: 1.4.5 Beta: Removed the old Advanced user interface and moved x264 preset/profile/tune there instead. The functionality is still available through editing the options string. Added ability to specify the H.264 level. Added ability to choose VidCoder's interface language. If you are interested in translating, we can get VidCoder in your language! Updated WPF text rendering to use the better Display mode. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5045. Removed logic that forced the .m4v extension in certain ...ImageGlass: Version 1.5: http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc483/phapsuxeko/ImageGlass/1.png v1.5.4401.3015 Thumbnail bar: Increase loading speed Thumbnail image with ratio Support personal customization: mouse up, mouse down, mouse hover, selected item... Scroll to show all items Image viewer Zoom by scroll, or selected rectangle Speed up loading Zoom to cursor point New background design and customization and others... v1.5.4430.483 Thumbnail bar: Auto move scroll bar to selected image Show / Hi...Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML: Full Source Chapters 1 - 10 for Windows 8 Fix 002: This is the full source from all chapters of the book, compiled and tested on Windows 8 RTM. Includes: A fix for the Netflix example from Chapter 6 that was missing a service reference A fix for the ImageHelper issue (images were not being saved) - this was due to the buffer being inadequate and required streaming the writeable bitmap to a buffer first before encoding and savingmyCollections: Version 2.3.2.0: New in this version : Added TheGamesDB.net API for Games and NDS Added Support for Windows Media Center Added Support for myMovies Added Support for XBMC Added Support for Dune HD Added Support for Mede8er Added Support for WD HDTV Added Fast search options Added order by Artist/Album for music You can now create covers and background for games You can now update your ID3 tag with the info of myCollections Fixed several provider Performance improvement New Splash ...Draw: Draw 1.0: Drawing PadPlayer Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 (v1.0): IMPORTANT: List of breaking changes from preview 7 Ability to move control panel or individual elements outside media player. more info... New Entertainment app theme for out of the box support for Windows 8 Entertainment app guidelines. more info... VSIX reference names shortened. Allows seeing plugin name from "Add Reference" dialog without resizing. FreeWheel SmartXML now supports new "Standard" event callback type. Other minor misc fixes and improvements ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmo...WebSearch.Net: WebSearch.Net 3.1: WebSearch.Net is an open-source research platform that provides uniform data source access, data modeling, feature calculation, data mining, etc. It facilitates the experiments of web search researchers due to its high flexibility and extensibility. The platform can be used or extended by any language compatible for .Net 2 framework, from C# (recommended), VB.Net to C++ and Java. Thanks to the large coverage of knowledge in web search research, it is necessary to model the techniques and main...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.10.0: NugetNuGet BlogRead the release blog post for 4.10.0. Whats newMVC support New request pipeline Many, many bugfixes (see the issue tracker for a complete list) Read the documentation for the MVC bits. Breaking changesWe have done all we can not to break backwards compatibility, but we had to do some minor breaking changes: Removed graphicHeadlineFormat config setting from umbracoSettings.config (an old relic from the 3.x days) U4-690 DynamicNode ChildrenAsList was fixed, altering it'...SQL Server Partitioned Table Framework: Partitioned Table Framework Release 1.0: SQL Server 2012 ReleaseSharePoint Manager 2013: SharePoint Manager 2013 Release ver 1.0.12.1106: SharePoint Manager 2013 Release (ver: 1.0.12.1106) is now ready for SharePoint 2013. The new version has an expanded view of the SharePoint object model and has been tested on SharePoint 2013 RTM. As a bonus, the new version is also available for SharePoint 2010 as a separate download.Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 1.2: Verzija 1.2. je, prije svega, odgovor na novu verziju Tehnicke specifikacije (v1.1.) koja je objavljena prije nekoliko dana. Pored novosti vezanih uz (sitne) izmjene u spomenutoj novoj verziji Tehnicke dokumentacije, projekt smo prošili sa nekim dodatnim feature-ima od kojih je vecina proizašla iz vaših prijedloga - hvala :) Novosti u v1.2. su: - Neusuglašenost zahtjeva (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/645) - Sample projekt - iznosi se množe sa 100 (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.c...MFCMAPI: October 2012 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1036 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeNew Projects.NET C# Wrapper for IQFeed API by Sentinel: An API for DTN IQFeed writtein in C#. Supports: - Historical Data Requests, - Lookup Tables - Level 1 - Level 2 - NewsBaiduMap: ????????API?????Bananagrams: An experimental Java project to find the most efficient strategy of playing Bannagrams, the popular game that I take absolutely no credit for inventing.Cloud Wallet: Don't try to remember every credit card, email, forum and account password of yours. Store them with Cloud Wallet in the skydrive and get them needed.Customer Contact System: System for Local Authorities/Government Bodies to manage enquiries from members of the public in their administrative area.daniel's little electronical bear: Hey, this is Daniel's idea that write her girlfriend a vivid little e-pet. So Daniel is just about to carry on this plan and hopefully fulfill it sooner or later. If you wanna give any advice, please don't hesitate to call me at any time,even ideas is OK!danielzhang0212@gmail.comfacebook page vote and like sample: facebook page vote and like sampleFriendly URL: This application is designed to help large organizations assign simple and memorable URL's to otherwise complicated or non-memorable URL's. GameSDK - Simple Game SDK with events: This game SDK use events for letting know each player through a game board when an events occurs. This is a simple SDK, easily adaptable to your project.GIF o Magic Prototype: GIF o Magic PrototypeHFS+ Driver Installer for Windows: Simple utility to install Read-Only HFS+ Driver to read Mac partitions from Windows.invrt: Simplest-that-could-possibly work inversion of control framework. Written in C#Kwd.Summary: Orchard module to provide alternate summary text for content itemsLogJam: LogJam will provide a modern, efficient, and productive framework for trace logging and metrics logging for all projects. LogJam is currently pre-alpha.Mi-DevEnv: Mi-DevEnv is an integrated set of PowerShell scripts to create virtual machines and populate them with software & tools e.g.: SharePoint,CRM,SQL,Office,K2 & VS.Mltools: mini tools for browser game.More Space Invaders: more then another space invadersMP3 Art Embedder: Embed cover art into MP3 filesMultiple GeoCoder: Serverside geocoding wrapper for various geocoding services. Supports a failover in the event you get throttled.My list: mvc3 project to test some frameworksMyFinalProject_WeamBinjumah: It is a website based on web 2.0 which about sea cruises' experiences with people who love amazing sea cruises. The website will offer most of web 2.0 features.netcached - memcached client for .NET: netcached is a lightweight, high performance .NET client for memcached protocol.paipai: paipaiProjeto Zeus: PROJETO REALIZADO COMO TRABALHO ACADÊMICO.Roy's Tools: Roy's ToolsSuperCotka: SuperCotkaSzoftvertechnológia beadandó: Árva Balázs beadandójának projektvezeto oldalat az ELTE szoftvertechnológia tantárgyára.Twi.Fly: Twi.Fly is designed to change the way that you write most of your code.Coding likes flying, more than twice speed.Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office: "Unicode IVS Add-in for Microsoft Office" makes Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 capable to load, save and edit documents contains Unicode IVS.Uyghur Named Date: Generate Uyghur named date string. ???????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????Windows 8 Camp BH: Projeto contendo conteudo de ajuda para o Windows 8 Camp oferecido pelo Microsoft Inovation Center de Belo Horizonte.???????: ??wpf??????? ?? ??

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• MySQL Cluster 7.3 Labs Release – Foreign Keys Are In!

  - by Mat Keep

  0 0 1 1097 6254 Homework 52 14 7337 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} Summary (aka TL/DR): Support for Foreign Key constraints has been one of the most requested feature enhancements for MySQL Cluster. We are therefore extremely excited to announce that Foreign Keys are part of the first Labs Release of MySQL Cluster 7.3 – available for download, evaluation and feedback now! (Select the mysql-cluster-7.3-labs-June-2012 build) In this blog, I will attempt to discuss the design rationale, implementation, configuration and steps to get started in evaluating the first MySQL Cluster 7.3 Labs Release. Pace of Innovation It was only a couple of months ago that we announced the General Availability (GA) of MySQL Cluster 7.2, delivering 1 billion Queries per Minute, with 70x higher cross-shard JOIN performance, Memcached NoSQL key-value API and cross-data center replication.  This release has been a huge hit, with downloads and deployments quickly reaching record levels. The announcement of the first MySQL Cluster 7.3 Early Access lab release at today's MySQL Innovation Day event demonstrates the continued pace in Cluster development, and provides an opportunity for the community to evaluate and feedback on new features they want to see. What’s the Plan for MySQL Cluster 7.3? Well, Foreign Keys, as you may have gathered by now (!), and this is the focus of this first Labs Release. As with MySQL Cluster 7.2, we plan to publish a series of preview releases for 7.3 that will incrementally add new candidate features for a final GA release (subject to usual safe harbor statement below*), including: - New NoSQL APIs; - Features to automate the configuration and provisioning of multi-node clusters, on premise or in the cloud; - Performance and scalability enhancements; - Taking advantage of features in the latest MySQL 5.x Server GA. Design Rationale MySQL Cluster is designed as a “Not-Only-SQL” database. It combines attributes that enable users to blend the best of both relational and NoSQL technologies into solutions that deliver web scalability with 99.999% availability and real-time performance, including: Concurrent NoSQL and SQL access to the database; Auto-sharding with simple scale-out across commodity hardware; Multi-master replication with failover and recovery both within and across data centers; Shared-nothing architecture with no single point of failure; Online scaling and schema changes; ACID compliance and support for complex queries, across shards. Native support for Foreign Key constraints enables users to extend the benefits of MySQL Cluster into a broader range of use-cases, including: - Packaged applications in areas such as eCommerce and Web Content Management that prescribe databases with Foreign Key support. - In-house developments benefiting from Foreign Key constraints to simplify data models and eliminate the additional application logic needed to maintain data consistency and integrity between tables. Implementation The Foreign Key functionality is implemented directly within MySQL Cluster’s data nodes, allowing any client API accessing the cluster to benefit from them – whether using SQL or one of the NoSQL interfaces (Memcached, C++, Java, JPA or HTTP/REST.) The core referential actions defined in the SQL:2003 standard are implemented: CASCADE RESTRICT NO ACTION SET NULL In addition, the MySQL Cluster implementation supports the online adding and dropping of Foreign Keys, ensuring the Cluster continues to serve both read and write requests during the operation. An important difference to note with the Foreign Key implementation in InnoDB is that MySQL Cluster does not support the updating of Primary Keys from within the Data Nodes themselves - instead the UPDATE is emulated with a DELETE followed by an INSERT operation. Therefore an UPDATE operation will return an error if the parent reference is using a Primary Key, unless using CASCADE action, in which case the delete operation will result in the corresponding rows in the child table being deleted. The Engineering team plans to change this behavior in a subsequent preview release. Also note that when using InnoDB "NO ACTION" is identical to "RESTRICT". In the case of MySQL Cluster “NO ACTION” means “deferred check”, i.e. the constraint is checked before commit, allowing user-defined triggers to automatically make changes in order to satisfy the Foreign Key constraints. Configuration There is nothing special you have to do here – Foreign Key constraint checking is enabled by default. If you intend to migrate existing tables from another database or storage engine, for example from InnoDB, there are a couple of best practices to observe: 1. Analyze the structure of the Foreign Key graph and run the ALTER TABLE ENGINE=NDB in the correct sequence to ensure constraints are enforced 2. Alternatively drop the Foreign Key constraints prior to the import process and then recreate when complete. Getting Started Read this blog for a demonstration of using Foreign Keys with MySQL Cluster.  You can download MySQL Cluster 7.3 Labs Release with Foreign Keys today - (select the mysql-cluster-7.3-labs-June-2012 build) If you are new to MySQL Cluster, the Getting Started guide will walk you through installing an evaluation cluster on a singe host (these guides reflect MySQL Cluster 7.2, but apply equally well to 7.3) Post any questions to the MySQL Cluster forum where our Engineering team will attempt to assist you. Post any bugs you find to the MySQL bug tracking system (select MySQL Cluster from the Category drop-down menu) And if you have any feedback, please post them to the Comments section of this blog. Summary MySQL Cluster 7.2 is the GA, production-ready release of MySQL Cluster. This first Labs Release of MySQL Cluster 7.3 gives you the opportunity to preview and evaluate future developments in the MySQL Cluster database, and we are very excited to be able to share that with you. Let us know how you get along with MySQL Cluster 7.3, and other features that you want to see in future releases. * Safe Harbor Statement This information is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

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• Explain DNS/Content/Registration with services such as Blogger and Go Daddy

  - by user8926

  I have this kind of settings for Google Sites and Blogger in Godaddy, below. I cannot get URL Framing (not URL masking) working with them. I am unsure what the problem, cannot understand what services such as Blogger and Godaddy really do. Wrong A-records in Go Daddy! ; A Records @ 3600 IN A 216.239.32.21 art 3600 IN A 64.202.189.170 abc 3600 IN A 64.202.189.170 @ 3600 IN A 216.239.34.21 @ 3600 IN A 216.239.36.21 @ 3600 IN A 216.239.38.21 lol 3600 IN A 64.202.189.170 ; CNAME Records www 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com mobilemail 3600 IN CNAME mobilemail-v01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net pda 3600 IN CNAME mobilemail-v01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net email 3600 IN CNAME email.secureserver.net imap 3600 IN CNAME imap.secureserver.net mail 3600 IN CNAME pop.secureserver.net pop 3600 IN CNAME pop.secureserver.net smtp 3600 IN CNAME smtp.secureserver.net ftp 3600 IN CNAME @ webmail 3600 IN CNAME webmail.secureserver.net e 3600 IN CNAME email.secureserver.net Please, explain the "Custom Domain" and how can I hide my blogger url? ok I am still unsure what the "custom domain" in blogger really mean, does it mean that the content hosting is moved to some other site? Or does it mean that it just hides the blogspot url with other url? Or is it this so-called "301" thing or "URL redirection" or something else? Related questions Control Content Hosting, DNS Hosting and Registration with command line?

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• You Say You Want a (Customer Experience) Revolution

  - by Christie Flanagan

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} rev-o-lu-tion [rev-uh-loo-shuhn] noun 1. a sudden, radical or complete change 2. fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something; a change of paradigm 3. a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> Lately, I've been hearing an awful lot about the customer experience revolution.  Tonight Oracle will be hosting The Experience Revolution, an evening of exploration and networking with customer experience executives in New York City where Oracle President Mark Hurd will introduce Oracle Customer Experience, a cross-stack suite of customer experience products that includes Oracle WebCenter and a number of other Oracle technologies. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Forrester Customer Experience Forum East also kicks off in New York City where they'll examine how businesses can "reap the full business benefits of the customer experience revolution." So, are we in the midst of a customer experience revolution? As a consumer, I can answer that question with a definitive “yes.” When I bought my very first car, I had a lot of questions. How do I know if I’m paying a fair price? How do I know if this dealer is honest? Why do I have to sit through these good cop, bad cop shenanigans between sales and sales management at the dealership? Why do I feel like I’m doing these people a favor by giving them my business? In the end the whole experience left me feeling deeply unsatisfied. I didn’t feel that I held all that much power over the experience and the only real negotiating trick I had was to walk out, which I did, many times before actually making a purchase. Fast forward to a year ago and I found myself back in the market for a new car. The very first car that I bought had finally kicked the bucket after many years, many repair bills, and much wear and tear. Man, I had loved that car. It was time to move on, but I had a knot in my stomach when I reflected back on my last car purchase experience and dreaded the thought of going through that again. Could that have been the reason why I drove my old car for so long? But as I started the process of researching new cars, I started to feel really confident. I had a wealth of online information that helped me in my search. I went to Edmunds and plugged in some information on my preferences and left with a short list of vehicles. After an afternoon spent test driving the cars my short list, I had determined my favorite – it was a model I didn’t even know about until my research on Edmunds! But I didn’t want to go back to the dealership where I test drove it. They were clearly old school and wanted me to buy the way that they wanted to sell. No thanks! After that I went back online. I figured out exactly what people had paid for this car in my area. I found out what kind of discount others were able to negotiate from an online community forum dedicated to the make and model. I found out how the sales people were being incentivized by the manufacturer that month. I learned which dealers had the best ratings and reviews. This was actually getting exciting. I was feeling really empowered. My next step was to request online quotes from the some of the highest rated dealers but I already knew exactly how much I was going to pay. This was really a test for the dealers. My new mantra was “let he who delivers the best customer experience win.” An inside sales rep from one dealer responded to my quote request within a couple of hours. I told him I had already decided on the make and model and it was just a matter of figuring out who I would buy it from. I also told them that I was really busy and wouldn’t set foot in the dealership unless we had come to terms beforehand. Lastly, I let him know that I’d prefer to work out the details via email. He promised to get back to me shortly with a detailed quote. Over the next few days I received calls from other dealers. One asked me a host of questions that I had already answered in their lengthy online form. Another blamed their website performance issues for their delay in responding to my request. But by then it didn’t really matter because I’d already bought the car days before from the dealer who responded to me first and who was willing to adjust their sales process to accommodate my buying one. So, yes, I really do believe we are in the midst of a customer experience revolution. And every revolution leaves some victorious and other vanquished. Which side do you want to be on when it comes to the customer experience revolution?

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• What is the correct way to deal with similar but independent features?

  - by Koviko

  Let's say we have a feature request come in and we begin work on it, which we'll call feature-1. It introduces some new logic to the application, which we'll call logic-A and logic-B. A programmer branches from the release branch and begins work on the feature. Soon after, we get another feature request, which we'll call feature-2. It will implement logic-A and logic-C into the application. The logic A being implemented by this feature is the same logic-A as was implemented in feature-1. Let's also say that given logic-B, logic-A might be implemented slightly differently than it would have been given logic-C, and also differently given both logic-B and logic-C (eg. with only one feature, the code would be less flexible than with both). How should this situation be handled? Concrete Example (to help with any confusion in my wording) feature-1 is a feed from programmers.stackexchange.com. feature-2 is a feed from gaming.stackexchange.com. logic-A is the implementation of a feed at all (assuming the application currently has no feeds), which links to the content as well and gives related information. logic-B is that the feed's source is from programmers.stackexchange.com. Adds to logic-A that the related programming language is displayed. logic-C is that the feed's source is from gaming.stackexchange.com. Adds to logic-A that the related game's name and box art is displayed.

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• Webinar: NoSQL - Data Center Centric Application Enablement

  - by Charles Lamb

  NoSQL - Data Center Centric Application Enablement AUGUST 6 WEBINAR About the Webinar The growth of Datacenter infrastructure is trending out of bounds, along with the pace in user activity and data generation in this digital era. However, the nature of the typical application deployment within the data center is changing to accommodate new business needs. Those changes introduce complexities in application deployment architecture and design, which cascade into requirements for a new generation of database technology (NoSQL) destined to ease that complexity. This webcast will discuss the modern data centers data centric application, the complexities that must be dealt with and common architectures found to describe and prescribe new data center aware services. Well look at the practical issues in implementation and overview current state of art in NoSQL database technology solving the problems of data center awareness in application development. REGISTER NOW>> MORE INFORMATION >> NOTE! All attendees will be entered to win a guest pass to the NoSQL Now! 2013 Conference & Expo. About the Speaker Robert Greene, Oracle NoSQL Product Management Robert GreeneRobert Greene is a principle product manager / strategist for Oracle’s NoSQL Database technology. Prior to Oracle he was the V.P. Technology for a NoSQL Database company, Versant Corporation, where he set the strategy for alignment with Big Data technology trends resulting in the acquisition of the company by Actian Corp in 2012. Robert has been an active member of both commercial and open source initiatives in the NoSQL and Object Relational Mapping spaces for the past 18 years, developing software, leading project teams, authoring articles and presenting at major conferences on these topics. In his previous life, Robert was an electronic engineer developing first generation wireless, spread spectrum based security systems.

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• Can I trust the Basic schedule equation?

  - by Steve Campbell

  I've been reading Steve McConnell's demystifying the black art of estimating book, and he gives an equation for estimating nominal schedule based on Person-months of effort: ScheduleInMonths = 3.0 x EffortInMonths ^ (1/3) Per the book, this is very accurate (within 25%), although the 3.0 factor above varies depending on your organization (typically between 2 and 4). It is supposedly easy to use historical projects in your organization to derive an appropriate factor for your use. I am trying to reconcile the equation against Agile methods, using 2-6 week cycles which are often mini-projects that have a working deliverable at the end. If I have a team of 5 developers over 4 weeks (1 month), then EffortInMonths = 5 Person Months. The algorithm then outputs a schedule of 3.0 x 5^(1/3) = 5 months. 5 months is much more than 25% different than 1 month. If I lower the 3.0 factor to 0.6, then the algorthim works (outputs a schedule of approx 1 month). The lowest possible factor mentioned in the book through is 2.0. Whats going on here? I want to trust this equation for estimating a "traditional" non-agile project, but I cannot trust it when it does not reconcile with my (agile) experience. Can someone help me understand?

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• Oracle Tuxedo at Oracle Open World 2012

  - by Deepak Goel

  Oracle Open World is almost here. There is quite a bit of Tuxedo to talk about at this year’s OOW. Primary focus will be on Tuxedo 12c, which was announced in August 2012 and is now generally available. Tuxedo 12c is a major release which many-many new and exciting features in almost all components of Tuxedo. You will not only hear about these features in various conference  sessions, you will also have an opportunity to see these features in action at demo grounds or play with these yourselves in hands-on-labs. Following is listing of Tuxedo related activities at OOW 2012: Conference Sessions Mon 1 Oct, 2012 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM, Oracle Tuxedo: What’s New in 12 c, Strategy, and Roadmap, Moscone South - 309 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM, Simplify Operations, Administration, and Management of Oracle Tuxedo Applications, Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate C3 Wed 3 Oct, 2012 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM, The Art and Practice of Mainframe Migration and Modernization, Moscone South - 309 Thu 4 Oct, 2012  2:15 PM - 3:15 PM, High-Performance, Scalable Enterprise Messaging for C/C++/COBOL Applications, Marriott Marquis - Salon 7 HOL (Hands-on Lab) Tues 2 Oct, 2012 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM Deploy, Manage, and Monitor Oracle Tuxedo Applications in the Enterprise Cloud, Marriott Marquis - Salon 3/4 Wed 3 Oct, 2012 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM, Develop C/C++ Applications for the Cloud with Oracle Tuxedo and Oracle Solaris Studio, Marriott Marquis - Salon 5/6 BOF (Birds-of-a-Feather) Mon 1 Oct, 2012 6:15 PM - 7:00 PM, Develop Scalable, Highly Available Enterprise Services in Java with Oracle Tuxedo, Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate C1 Demos Oracle Tuxedo: #1 Enterprise Cloud Platform for C/C++/COBOL Apps,  Moscone South, Right - S-215 Mainframe Rehost with Oracle Tuxedo Runtimes for CICS, IMS, and Batch, Moscone South, Right - S-216 Tuxedo Customer Appreciation Dinner Monday 1 Oct, 2012 7:30 PM - Please contact your Oracle Account Representative to attend. Limited seating. Deepak Goel Sr. Director, Software Development Oracle

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• Developing with Fluid UI – The Fluid Home Page

  - by Dave Bain

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} The first place to start with Fluid UI is with the Fluid Home Page. Sometimes it’s referred to as the landing page, but it’s formally called the Fluid Home Page. It’s delivered with PeopleTools 8.54, and the nice thing about it is, it’s a component. That’s one thing you’ll discover with Fluid UI. Fluid UI is built int PeopleTools with Fluid UI. The Home Page is a component, the tiles or grouplets are group boxes, and the search and prompt pages are just pages. It makes it easy to find things, customize and brand the applications (and of course to see what’s going on) when you can open it in AppDesigner. To see what makes a component fluid, let’s start with the Fluid Home Page. It’s a component called PT_LANDINGPAGE. You can open it in AppDesigner and see what’s unique and different about Fluid UI. If you open the Component Properties dialog, you’ll see a new tab called Fluid On the Component Properties Fluid tab you’ll see the most important checkbox of all, Fluid Mode. That is the one flag that will tell PeopleSoft if the component is Fluid (responsive, dynamic layout) or classic (pixel perfect). Now that you know it’s a single flag, you know that a component can’t be both Fluid UI and Classic at the same time, it’s one or the other. There are some other interesting fields on this page. The Small Form Factor Optimized field tells us whether or not to display this on a small device (think smarphone). Header Toolbar Actions offer standard options that are set at the component level so you have complete control of the components header bar. You’ll notice that the PT_LANDINGPAGE has got some PostBuild PeopleCode. That’s to build the grouplets that are used to launch Fluid UI Pages (more about those later). Probably not a good idea to mess with that code! The next thing to look at is the Page Definition for the PT_LANDINGPAGE component. When you open the page PT_LANDINGPAGE it will look different than anything you’ve ever seen. You’re probably thinking “What’s up with all the group boxes”? That is where Fluid UI is so different. In classic PeopleSoft, you put a button, field, group, any control on a page and that’s where it shows up, no questions asked. With Fluid UI, everything is positioned relative to something else. That’s why there are so many containers (you know them as group boxes). They are UI objects that are used for dynamic positioning. The Fluid Home Page has some special behavior and special settings. The first is in the Web Profile Configuration settings (Main Menu->PeopleTools->Web Profile->Web Profile Configuration from the main menu). There are two checkboxes that control the behavior of Fluid UI. Disable Fluid Mode and Disable Fluid On Desktop. Disable Fluid Mode prevents any Fluid UI component from being run from this installation. This is a web profile setting for users that want to run later versions of PeopleTools but only want to run Classic PeopleSoft pages. The second setting, Disable Fluid On Desktop allows the Fluid UI to be run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, but prevents Fluid UI from running on a desktop computer. Fluid UI settings are also make in My Personalizations (Main Menu->My Personalizations from the Main Menu), in the General Options section. In that section, each user has the choice to determine the home page for their desktop and for tablets. Now that you know the Fluid UI landing page is just a component, and the profile and personalization settings, you should be able to launch one. It’s pretty easy to add a menu using Structure and Content, just make sure the proper security is set up. You’ll have to run a Fluid UI supported browser in order to see it. Latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and IE will do. Check the certification page on MOS for all the details. When you open the first Fluid Landing Page, there’s not much there. Not to worry, we’ll get some content on it soon. Take a moment to navigate around and look at some of the header actions that were set up from the component properties. The home button takes you back to the classic system. You won’t see any notifications and the personalization doesn’t have any content to add. The NavBar icon on the top right has a lot of content, including a Navigator and Classic home. Spend some time looking through what’s available. Stay tuned for more. Next up is adding some content. Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• links for 2011-03-07

  - by Bob Rhubart

  DON CIO News: DON CIO Discusses Future IT Initiatives Audio links and a little background information on a recent town hall meetings hosted by Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen. (tags: usgov usnavy cio enterprisearchitecture) Strassmann's Blog: Why So Many Data Centers? "The idea of datacenter consolidation involves much more that applying simple technical solutions." - Paul Strassmann (tags: enterprisearchitecture datacenter consolidation) Satyajith Nair: Coherence - The next big thing for the cloud!! "Disk-based computing is fraught with performance and management issues and doing away with Disks though not practical now, maybe true in the future. This also calls for a re-think of our current application architecture which is so focussed on disk-based persistence." - Satyajith Nair (tags: oracle infosys coherence grid cloud) TechCast: GlassFish Server and WebLogic - Interoperability and Integration - Oracle media - developer Fusion VP Development Anil Gaur and Product Manager Adam Leftik explain Oracle&#39;s strategy for creating increasing integration between GlassFish Server and Oracle WebLogic Server with an overview of new features and functionality for developers in GlassFish 3.1. (tags: ping.fm) Oracle Fusion and Oracle Fusion Applications : Overview | OracleApps Epicenter So WHAT IS ORACLE FUSION? People often get confuse with this term .To start with, it will be a good idea to know the difference between Fusion (tags: ping.fm) Marc Kelderman: OSB: Automatic update of Service Acounts Solution architect Marc Kelderman shares a work-around for using different Service Accounts for multiple environments. (tags: oracle otn sca bpel soa bpm servicebus) Perfect Integration 1 - Architectural Approach "First post in a series of 5-10, I will release all my views and opinions on the Art of Integration. I challenge you to disagree, and bash me with arguments and reasoning." -- Martijn Linssen (tags: enterprisearchitecture integration) Edwin Biemond: Set the Initial Focus on a component in a Page or a Fragment Edwin says: "This is not so hard to do, but sometimes it can be tricky to find the id of a component when you use regions ( Bounded Task Flows )." (tags: oracle otn oracleace java soa) Oracle Linux and Oracle Virtualization at Collaborate 2011 Information on more than 200 Oracle-hosted sessions with the latest insights and guidance from Oracle executives, product managers, and developers. (tags: oracle virtualization linux ioug oaug)

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• Almost at our first year anniversary!

  - by Vizioz Limited

  It has been a hectic first year at Vizioz and things are still going from strength to strength. 11 months ago I started Vizioz with zero capital investment in the middle of a recession, which to some may seem a daunting prospect but to others including myself it was the challenge I needed to make me want to get up in the morning :) I wanted to prove that even in the curent financial climate it is still possible to start a new business.We are still experiencing the normal growing pains of a small business but this is something we just need to work our way through, it is amazing how much paperwork and administration there is running a small business, office admin, insurance, vat and for the last few months PAYE.For the last 9 months we have shared an office with another small business called Little Big Ideas. They are a design agency working across a broad spectrum of design from branding, print and digital. Last month we decided to move offices to a larger office and now have room for 8 of us, so now we need a couple more clients to help produce enough work to fill the space and grow to the next level.As well as moving office 2 months ago I blogged about my first employee Colin starting work for me, he has picked up Umbraco very well and has mastered the art of good CSS design, as the majority of our clients are large multi-nationals they still require support for IE6 which as all web developers know is the nightmare of all web browsers.This month has seen the next step in the growth of Vizioz as I have taken on another PhD graduate called Pricilla, welcome to the team!This month we plan to launch our own website to enable us to showcase some of the sites we have built over the past 11 months and to allow potential clients to see what we can offer. We might still be relatively small but we have some great case studies to show and with two PhD graduates on the team we have great talent capable of producing complex and innovative solutions for our clients. As soon as we have launched out new website I will blog again about what the future holds for Vizioz and what we can offer our prospective clients as well as e obvious Umbraco CMS solutions.

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• Contracting as a Software Developer in the UK

  - by Frez

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Having had some 15 years’ experience of working as a software contractor, I am often asked by developers who work as permanent employees (permies) about the pros and cons of working as a software consultant through my own limited company and whether the move would be a good one for them. Whilst it is possible to contract using other financial vehicles such as umbrella companies, this article will only consider limited companies as that is what I have experience of using. Contracting or consultancy requires a different mind-set from being a permanent member of staff, and not all developers are capable of this shift in attitude. Whilst you can look forward to an increase in the money you take home, there are real risks and expenses you would not normally be exposed to as a permie. So let us have a look at the pros and cons: Pros: More money There is no doubt that whilst you are working on contracts you will earn significantly more than you would as a permanent employee. Furthermore, working through a limited company is more tax efficient. Less politics You really have no need to involve yourself in office politics. When the end of the day comes you can go home and not think or worry about the power struggles within the company you are contracted to. Your career progression is not tied to the company. Expenses from gross income All your expenses of trading as a business will come out of your company’s gross income, i.e. before tax. This covers travelling expenses provided you have not been at the same client/location for more than two years, internet subscriptions, professional subscriptions, software, hardware, accountancy services and so on. Cons: Work is more transient Contracts typically range from a couple of weeks to a year, although will most likely start at 3 months. However, most contracts are extended either because the project you have been brought in to help with takes longer to deliver than expected, the client decides they can use you on other aspects of the project, or the client decides they would like to use you on other projects. The temporary nature of the work means that you will have down-time between contracts while you secure new opportunities during which time your company will have no income. You may need to attend several interviews before securing a new contract. Accountancy expenses Your company is a separate entity and there are accountancy requirements which, unless you like paperwork, means your company will need to appoint an accountant to prepare your company’s accounts. It may also be worth purchasing some accountancy software, so talk to your accountant about this as they may prefer you to use a particular software package so they can integrate it with their systems. VAT You will need to register your company for VAT. This is tax neutral for you as the VAT you charge your clients you will pass onto the government less any VAT you are reclaiming from expenses, but it is additional paperwork to undertake each quarter. It is worth checking out the Fixed Rate VAT Scheme that is available, particularly after the initial expenses of setting up your company are over. No training Clients take you on based on your skills, not to train you when they will lose that investment at the end of the contract, so understand that it is unlikely you will receive any training funded by a client. However, learning new skills during a contract is possible and you may choose to accept a contract on a lower rate if this is guaranteed as it will help secure future contracts. No financial extras You will have no free pension, life, accident, sickness or medical insurance unless you choose to purchase them yourself. A financial advisor can give you all the necessary advice in this area, and it is worth taking seriously. A year after I started as a consultant I contracted a serious illness, this kept me off work for over two months, my client was very understanding and it could have been much worse, so it is worth considering what your options might be in the case of illness, death and retirement. Agencies Whilst it is possible to work directly for end clients there are pros and cons of working through an agency.  The main advantage is cash flow, you invoice the agency and they typically pay you within a week, whereas working directly for a client could have you waiting up to three months to be paid. The downside of working for agencies, especially in the current difficult times, is that they may go out of business and you then have difficulty getting the money you are owed. Tax investigation It is possible that the Inland Revenue may decide to investigate your company for compliance with tax law. Insurance is available to cover you for this. My personal recommendation would be to join the PCG as this insurance is included as a benefit of membership, Professional Indemnity Some agencies require that you are covered by professional indemnity insurance; this is a cost you would not incur as a permie. Travel Unless you live in an area that has an abundance of opportunities, such as central London, it is likely that you will be travelling further, longer and with more expense than if you were permanently employed at a local company. This not only affects you monetarily, but also your quality of life and the ability to keep fit and healthy. Obtaining finance If you want to secure a mortgage on a property it can be more difficult or expensive, especially if you do not have three years of audited accounts to show a mortgage lender.   Caveat This post is my personal opinion and should not be used as a definitive guide or recommendation to contracting and whether it is suitable for you as an individual, i.e. I accept no responsibility if you decide to take up contracting based on this post and you fare badly for whatever reason.

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• Guide to MySQL & NoSQL, Webinar Q&A

  - by Mat Keep

  0 0 1 959 5469 Homework 45 12 6416 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} Yesterday we ran a webinar discussing the demands of next generation web services and how blending the best of relational and NoSQL technologies enables developers and architects to deliver the agility, performance and availability needed to be successful. Attendees posted a number of great questions to the MySQL developers, serving to provide additional insights into areas like auto-sharding and cross-shard JOINs, replication, performance, client libraries, etc. So I thought it would be useful to post those below, for the benefit of those unable to attend the webinar. Before getting to the Q&A, there are a couple of other resources that maybe useful to those looking at NoSQL capabilities within MySQL: - On-Demand webinar (coming soon!) - Slides used during the webinar - Guide to MySQL and NoSQL whitepaper  - MySQL Cluster demo, including NoSQL interfaces, auto-sharing, high availability, etc.  So here is the Q&A from the event  Q. Where does MySQL Cluster fit in to the CAP theorem? A. MySQL Cluster is flexible. A single Cluster will prefer consistency over availability in the presence of network partitions. A pair of Clusters can be configured to prefer availability over consistency. A full explanation can be found on the MySQL Cluster & CAP Theorem blog post.  Q. Can you configure the number of replicas? (the slide used a replication factor of 1) Yes. A cluster is configured by an .ini file. The option NoOfReplicas sets the number of originals and replicas: 1 = no data redundancy, 2 = one copy etc. Usually there's no benefit in setting it >2. Q. Interestingly most (if not all) of the NoSQL databases recommend having 3 copies of data (the replication factor).    Yes, with configurable quorum based Reads and writes. MySQL Cluster does not need a quorum of replicas online to provide service. Systems that require a quorum need > 2 replicas to be able to tolerate a single failure. Additionally, many NoSQL systems take liberal inspiration from the original GFS paper which described a 3 replica configuration. MySQL Cluster avoids the need for a quorum by using a lightweight arbitrator. You can configure more than 2 replicas, but this is a tradeoff between incrementally improved availability, and linearly increased cost. Q. Can you have cross node group JOINS? Wouldn't that run into the risk of flooding the network? MySQL Cluster 7.2 supports cross nodegroup joins. A full cross-join can require a large amount of data transfer, which may bottleneck on network bandwidth. However, for more selective joins, typically seen with OLTP and light analytic applications, cross node-group joins give a great performance boost and network bandwidth saving over having the MySQL Server perform the join. Q. Are the details of the benchmark available anywhere? According to my calculations it results in approx. 350k ops/sec per processor which is the largest number I've seen lately The details are linked from Mikael Ronstrom's blog The benchmark uses a benchmarking tool we call flexAsynch which runs parallel asynchronous transactions. It involved 100 byte reads, of 25 columns each. Regarding the per-processor ops/s, MySQL Cluster is particularly efficient in terms of throughput/node. It uses lock-free minimal copy message passing internally, and maximizes ID cache reuse. Note also that these are in-memory tables, there is no need to read anything from disk. Q. Is access control (like table) planned to be supported for NoSQL access mode? Currently we have not seen much need for full SQL-like access control (which has always been overkill for web apps and telco apps). So we have no plans, though especially with memcached it is certainly possible to turn-on connection-level access control. But specifically table level controls are not planned. Q. How is the performance of memcached APi with MySQL against memcached+MySQL or any other Object Cache like Ecache with MySQL DB? With the memcache API we generally see a memcached response in less than 1 ms. and a small cluster with one memcached server can handle tens of thousands of operations per second. Q. Can .NET can access MemcachedAPI? Yes, just use a .Net memcache client such as the enyim or BeIT memcache libraries. Q. Is the row level locking applicable when you update a column through memcached API? An update that comes through memcached uses a row lock and then releases it immediately. Memcached operations like "INCREMENT" are actually pushed down to the data nodes. In most cases the locks are not even held long enough for a network round trip. Q. Has anyone published an example using something like PHP? I am assuming that you just use the PHP memcached extension to hook into the memcached API. Is that correct? Not that I'm aware of but absolutely you can use it with php or any of the other drivers Q. For beginner we need more examples. Take a look here for a fully worked example Q. Can I access MySQL using Cobol (Open Cobol) or C and if so where can I find the coding libraries etc? A. There is a cobol implementation that works well with MySQL, but I do not think it is Open Cobol. Also there is a MySQL C client library that is a standard part of every mysql distribution Q. Is there a place to go to find help when testing and/implementing the NoSQL access? If using Cluster then you can use the [email protected] alias or post on the MySQL Cluster forum Q. Are there any white papers on this?  Yes - there is more detail in the MySQL Guide to NoSQL whitepaper If you have further questions, please don’t hesitate to use the comments below!

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• Are You Using Facebook with an Encrypted Session Yet?

  - by The Geek

  If you’re geeky and keep up with all the tech news, you probably already know that Facebook added an SSL feature, but for everybody else: You can make your Facebook profile more secure by turning this option on, and here’s how to do it. All we’re going to do is head into the Facebook profile settings and then check a box that forces the use of SSL encryption whenever possible. Easy Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? Project M Brings Classic Super Smash Bro Style Gameplay to the Wii Now Together and Complete – McBain: The Movie [Simpsons Video] Be Creative by Using Hex and RGB Codes for Crayola Crayon Colors on Your Next Web or Art Project [Geek Fun] Flash Updates; Finally Supports Full Screen Video on Multiple Monitors 22 Ways to Recycle an Altoids Mint Tin Make Your Desktop Go Native with the Tribal Arts Theme for Windows 7

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• The Best Websites for Downloading and Playing Classic and New Text Adventure Games

  - by Lori Kaufman

  Before computers could handle graphical games, there were text adventure games. The games are interactive stories, so playing a text adventure game is like being part of a book in which you affect the story. Text adventure games are also referred to as “interactive fiction.” Interactive Fiction (IF) is actually a more accurate term for text adventure games, because these games can cover any topics, such as romances or comedies, not just adventures. They can also simulate real life. Even though computers can now handle intensely graphical games, playing text adventure games can still be fun. It’s like reading a good book and getting lost in the universe of the story, except you become the hero or heroine and affect the ending of the story. We’ve collected some links to websites where you can download classic and new text adventure games or play them online. There are also some free tools available for creating your own text adventure games. We even found a documentary about the evolution of computer adventure games and some articles about the art and craft of developing the original text adventure games. How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

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• Android-Libgdx-ProGuard: Usefulness without DexGuard? [on hold]

  - by Rico Pablo Mince

  So I'm developing a game for Android - using LibGDX - and noticed that the Android SDK (HDK, MDK, WhatTheHellEvarDK) has ProGuard built-in. Browsing the ProGuard page is like searching Google: you get that the idea is to sell some product (in this case, it's DexGuard). That leaves me wondering what features are left out of ProGuard that a game developer targeting Android should worry about. For instance, the ProGuard FAQs answer the question: "Does ProGuard encrypt string constants?" by saying: "No. String encryption in program code has to be perfectly reversible by definition, so it only improves the obfuscation level. It increases the footprint of the code. However, by popular demand, ProGuard's closed-source sibling for Android, DexGuard, does provide string encryption, along with more protection techniques against static and dynamic analysis." Alright. OK. But isn't "...improves the obfuscation level" EXACTLY what ProGuard is supposed to do? Are there better options that can be implemented at build-time in Eclipse using the Gradle options and Libgdx? In particular, the assets folder and res-specific folders will need some protection. The code itself doesn't cure cancer, but I'd prefer if nobody could copy/paste it with different game art and call it "IhAxEdUrGamE"....

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• How do I create a 2.5d parallax effect?

  - by Nikolay Dyankov

  I have a decent background in 3D graphics and programming, but I'm new to game development. I'm currently exploring different possibilities and I really want to make an RPG game. I was thinking about classic 2D isometric view, but I really love how Diablo 2 looks and feels to play. My question is - how can I achieve Diablo 2's parallax effect? Everything looks hand drawn with baked lights and shadows and looks awesome, but when you move around you notice some perspective. For example, let's say that I drew a big hall with columns in Photoshop with an orthographic perspective (classic pixel art style, just parallel lines). How would I give parallax effect to this scene when the character moves around? If I use camera-facing sprites for everything it would probably look OK in the distance, but it would be really fake when a character comes close to a column (cylinder) for example. Any suggestions? How did Blizzard make the parallax effect in Diablo 2? See this screenshot: http://guidesmedia.ign.com/guides/10629/images/act2tombs.jpg

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• T4 Performance Counters explained

  - by user13346607

  Now that T4 is out for a few month some people might have wondered what details of the new pipeline you can monitor. A "cpustat -h" lists a lot of events that can be monitored, and only very few are self-explanatory. I will try to give some insight on all of them, some of these "PIC events" require an in-depth knowledge of T4 pipeline. Over time I will try to explain these, for the time being these events should simply be ignored. (Side note: some counters changed from tape-out 1.1 (*only* used in the T4 beta program) to tape-out 1.2 (used in the systems shipping today) The table only lists the tape-out 1.2 counters) 0 0 1 1058 6033 Oracle Microelectronics 50 14 7077 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} pic name (cpustat) Prose Comment Sel-pipe-drain-cycles, Sel-0-[wait|ready], Sel-[1,2] Sel-0-wait counts cycles a strand waits to be selected. Some reasons can be counted in detail; these are: Sel-0-ready: Cycles a strand was ready but not selected, that can signal pipeline oversubscription Sel-1: Cycles only one instruction or µop was selected Sel-2: Cycles two instructions or µops were selected Sel-pipe-drain-cycles: cf. PRM footnote 8 to table 10.2 Pick-any, Pick-[0|1|2|3] Cycles one, two, three, no or at least one instruction or µop is picked Instr_FGU_crypto Number of FGU or crypto instructions executed on that vcpu Instr_ld dto. for load Instr_st dto. for store SPR_ring_ops dto. for SPR ring ops Instr_other dto. for all other instructions not listed above, PRM footnote 7 to table 10.2 lists the instructions Instr_all total number of instructions executed on that vcpu Sw_count_intr Nr of S/W count instructions on that vcpu (sethi %hi(fc000),%g0 (whatever that is))  Atomics nr of atomic ops, which are LDSTUB/a, CASA/XA, and SWAP/A SW_prefetch Nr of PREFETCH or PREFETCHA instructions Block_ld_st Block loads or store on that vcpu IC_miss_nospec, IC_miss_[L2_or_L3|local|remote]\ _hit_nospec Various I$ misses, distinguished by where they hit. All of these count per thread, but only primary events: T4 counts only the first occurence of an I$ miss on a core for a certain instruction. If one strand misses in I$ this miss is counted, but if a second strand on the same core misses while the first miss is being resolved, that second miss is not counted This flavour of I$ misses counts only misses that are caused by instruction that really commit (note the "_nospec") BTC_miss Branch target cache miss ITLB_miss ITLB misses (synchronously counted) ITLB_miss_asynch dto. but asynchronously [I|D]TLB_fill_\ [8KB|64KB|4MB|256MB|2GB|trap] H/W tablewalk events that fill ITLB or DTLB with translation for the corresponding page size. The “_trap” event occurs if the HWTW was not able to fill the corresponding TLB IC_mtag_miss, IC_mtag_miss_\ [ptag_hit|ptag_miss|\ ptag_hit_way_mismatch] I$ micro tag misses, with some options for drill down Fetch-0, Fetch-0-all fetch-0 counts nr of cycles nothing was fetched for this particular strand, fetch-0-all counts cycles nothing was fetched for all strands on a core Instr_buffer_full Cycles the instruction buffer for a strand was full, thereby preventing any fetch BTC_targ_incorrect Counts all occurences of wrongly predicted branch targets from the BTC [PQ|ROB|LB|ROB_LB|SB|\ ROB_SB|LB_SB|RB_LB_SB|\ DTLB_miss]\ _tag_wait ST_q_tag_wait is listed under sl=20. These counters monitor pipeline behaviour therefore they are not strand specific: PQ_...: cycles Rename stage waits for a Pick Queue tag (might signal memory bound workload for single thread mode, cf. Mail from Richard Smith) ROB_...: cycles Select stage waits for a ROB (ReOrderBuffer) tag LB_...: cycles Select stage waits for a Load Buffer tag SB_...: cycles Select stage waits for Store Buffer tag combinations of the above are allowed, although some of these events can overlap, the counter will only be incremented once per cycle if any of these occur DTLB_...: cycles load or store instructions wait at Pick stage for a DTLB miss tag [ID]TLB_HWTW_\ [L2_hit|L3_hit|L3_miss|all] Counters for HWTW accesses caused by either DTLB or ITLB misses. Canbe further detailed by where they hit IC_miss_L2_L3_hit, IC_miss_local_remote_remL3_hit, IC_miss I$ prefetches that were dropped because they either miss in L2$ or L3$ This variant counts misses regardless if the causing instruction commits or not DC_miss_nospec, DC_miss_[L2_L3|local|remote_L3]\ _hit_nospec D$ misses either in general or detailed by where they hit cf. the explanation for the IC_miss in two flavours for an explanation of _nospec and the reasoning for two DC_miss counters DTLB_miss_asynch counts all DTLB misses asynchronously, there is no way to count them synchronously DC_pref_drop_DC_hit, SW_pref_drop_[DC_hit|buffer_full] L1-D$ h/w prefetches that were dropped because of a D$ hit, counted per core. The others count software prefetches per strand [Full|Partial]_RAW_hit_st_[buf|q] Count events where a load wants to get data that has not yet been stored, i. e. it is still inside the pipeline. The data might be either still in the store buffer or in the store queue. If the load's data matches in the SB and in the store queue the data in buffer takes precedence of course since it is younger [IC|DC]_evict_invalid, [IC|DC|L1]_snoop_invalid, [IC|DC|L1]_invalid_all Counter for invalidated cache evictions per core St_q_tag_wait Number of cycles pipeline waits for a store queue tag, of course counted per core Data_pref_[drop_L2|drop_L3|\ hit_L2|hit_L3|\ hit_local|hit_remote] Data prefetches that can be further detailed by either why they were dropped or where they did hit St_hit_[L2|L3], St_L2_[local|remote]_C2C, St_local, St_remote Store events distinguished by where they hit or where they cause a L2 cache-to-cache transfer, i.e. either a transfer from another L2$ on the same die or from a different die DC_miss, DC_miss_\ [L2_L3|local|remote]_hit D$ misses either in general or detailed by where they hit cf. the explanation for the IC_miss in two flavours for an explanation of _nospec and the reasoning for two DC_miss counters L2_[clean|dirty]_evict Per core clean or dirty L2$ evictions L2_fill_buf_full, L2_wb_buf_full, L2_miss_buf_full Per core L2$ buffer events, all count number of cycles that this state was present L2_pipe_stall Per core cycles pipeline stalled because of L2$ Branches Count branches (Tcc, DONE, RETRY, and SIT are not counted as branches) Br_taken Counts taken branches (Tcc, DONE, RETRY, and SIT are not counted as branches) Br_mispred, Br_dir_mispred, Br_trg_mispred, Br_trg_mispred_\ [far_tbl|indir_tbl|ret_stk] Counter for various branch misprediction events.  Cycles_user counts cycles, attribute setting hpriv, nouser, sys controls addess space to count in Commit-[0|1|2], Commit-0-all, Commit-1-or-2 Number of times either no, one, or two µops commit for a strand. Commit-0-all counts number of times no µop commits for the whole core, cf. footnote 11 to table 10.2 in PRM for a more detailed explanation on how this counters interacts with the privilege levels

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• TDD - Outside In vs Inside Out

  - by Songo

  What is the difference between building an application Outside In vs building it Inside Out using TDD? These are the books I read about TDD and unit testing: Test Driven Development: By Example Test-Driven Development: A Practical Guide: A Practical Guide Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .Net Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests---This one was really hard to understand since JAVA isn't my primary language :) Almost all of them explained TDD basics and unit testing in general, but with little mention of the different ways the application can be constructed. Another thing I noticed is that most of these books (if not all) ignore the design phase when writing the application. They focus more on writing the test cases quickly and letting the design emerge by itself. However, I came across a paragraph in xUnit Test Patterns that discussed the ways people approach TDD. There are 2 schools out there Outside In vs Inside Out. Sadly the book doesn't elaborate more on this point. I wish to know what is the main difference between these 2 cases. When should I use each one of them? To a TDD beginner which one is easier to grasp? What is the drawbacks of each method? Is there any materials out there that discuss this topic specifically?

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• Rapid Evolution of Society & Technology

  - by Michael Snow

  We caught up with Brian Solis on the phone the other day and Christie Flanagan had a chance to chat with him and learn a bit more about him and some of the concepts he'll be addressing in our Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast on Thursday 12/13/12. «--- Interview with Brian Solis  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Be sure and register for this week's webcast ---» ------------------- Guest post by Brian Solis. Reposted (Borrowed) from his posting of May 24, 2012 Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise? - Brian Solis You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive technology by your internal champions yet you’ve not tried to find the value for yourself. You’re a change agent and you truly wish to bring about change, but you’ve not invested time or resources to answer “why” in your endeavors to become a connected or social business. If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time. Without doing so, any attempts at evolution will be thwarted by reality. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. These are undisciplined times which require alternative approaches to recognize and pursue new opportunities. But everything begins with acknowledging the 360 view of the world that you see today is actually a filtered view of managed and efficient convenience. Today, many organizations that were once inspired by innovation and engagement have fallen into a process of marketing, operationalizing, managing, and optimizing. That might have worked for the better part of the last century, but for the next 10 years and beyond, new vision, leadership and supporting business models will be written to move businesses from rigid frameworks to adaptive and agile entities. I believe that today’s executives will undergo a great test; a test of character, vision, intention, and universal leadership. It starts with a simple, but essential question…what is your promise? Notice, I didn’t ask about your brand promise. Nor did I ask for you to cite your mission and vision statements. This is much more than value propositions or manufactured marketing language designed to hook audiences and stakeholders. I asked for your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner. This isn’t about B2B or B2C, but instead, people to people, person to person. It is this promise that will breathe new life into an organization that on the outside, could be misdiagnosed as catatonic by those who are disrupting your markets. A promise, for example, is meant to inspire. It creates alignment. It serves as the foundation for your vision, mission, and all business strategies and it must come from the top to mean anything. For without it, we cannot genuinely voice what it is we stand for or stand behind. Think for a moment about the definition of community. It’s easy to confuse a workplace or a market where everyone simply shares common characteristics. However, a community in this day and age is much more than belonging to something, it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter The next few years will force a divide where companies are separated by intention as measured by actions and words. But, becoming a social business is not enough. Becoming more authentic and transparent doesn’t serve as a mantra for a renaissance. A promise is the ink that inscribes the spirit of the relationship between you and me. A promise serves as the words that influence change from within and change beyond the halls of our business. It is the foundation for a renewed embrace, one that must then find its way to every aspect of the organization. It’s the difference between a social business and an adaptive business. While an adaptive business can also be social, it is the culture of the organization that strives to not just use technology to extend current philosophies or processes into new domains, but instead give rise to a new culture where striving for relevance is among its goals. The tools and networks simply become enablers of a greater mission You are reading this because you believe in something more than what you’re doing today. While you fight for change within your organization, remember to aim for a higher purpose. Organizations that strive for innovation, imagination, and relevance will outperform those that do not. Part of your job is to lead a missionary push that unites the groundswell with a top down cascade. Change will only happen because you and other internal champions see what others can’t and will do what other won’t. It takes resolve. It takes the ability to translate new opportunities into business value. And, it takes courage. “This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us”-Steve Jobs ----------------------------------------------------------------- So -- where do you begin to evaluate the kind of experience you are delivering for your customers, partners, and employees?  Take a look at this White Paper: Creating a Successful and Meaningful Customer Experience on the Web and then have a cup of coffee while you listen to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki in a short video below.   An interview with Guy Kawasaki on Maximizing Social Media Channels 

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• I want to build a Virtual Machine, are there any good references?

  - by Michael Stum

  I'm looking to build a Virtual Machine as a platform independent way to run some game code (essentially scripting). The Virtual Machines that I'm aware of in games are rather old: Infocom's Z-Machine, LucasArts' SCUMM, id Software's Quake 3. As a .net Developer, I'm familiar with the CLR and looked into the CIL Instructions to get an overview of what you actually implement on a VM Level (vs. the language level). I've also dabbled a bit in 6502 Assembler during the last year. The thing is, now that I want¹ to implement one, I need to dig a bit deeper. I know that there are stack based and register based VMs, but I don't really know which one is better at what and if there are more or hybrid approaches. I need to deal with memory management, decide which low level types are part of the VM and need to understand why stuff like ldstr works the way it does. My only reference book (apart from the Z-Machine stuff) is the CLI Annotated Standard, but I wonder if there is a better, more general/fundamental lecture for VMs? Basically something like the Dragon Book, but for VMs? I'm aware of Donald Knuth's Art of Computer Programming which uses a register-based VM, but I'm not sure how applicable that series still is, especially since it's still unfinished? Clarification: The goal is to build a specialized VM. For example, Infocom's Z-Machine contains OpCodes for setting the Background Color or playing a sound. So I need to figure out how much goes into the VM as OpCodes vs. the compiler that takes a script (language TBD) and generates the bytecode from it, but for that I need to understand what I'm really doing. ¹ I know, modern technology would allow me to just interpret a high level scripting language on the fly. But where is the fun in that? :) It's also a bit hard to google because Virtual Machines is nowadays often associated with VMWare-type OS Virtualization...

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• XNA C# Platformer - physics engine or tile based?

  - by Hugh

  I would like to get some opinions on whether i should develop my game using a physics engine (farseer physics seems to be the best option) or follow the traditional tile-based method. Quick background: - its a college project, my first game, but have 4 years academic programming experience - Just want a basic platformer with a few levels, nothing fancy - want a shooting mechanic, run and gun, just like contra or metal slug for example - possibly some simple puzzles I have made a basic prototype with farseer, the level is hardcoded with collisions and not really tiled, more like big full-screen sized tiles, with collision bodies drawn manually along the ground and walls etc. My main problem is i want a simple retro feel to the jumping and physics but because its a physics simulation engine its going to be realistic, whereas typical in air controllable physics for platformers arent realistic. I have to make a box with wheel body fixture under it to have this effect and its glitchy and doesnt feel right. I chose to use a physics engine because i tried the tile method initially and found it very hard to understand, the engine took care of alot things to save me time, mainly being able to do slopes easily was nice and the freedom to draw collision bounds wherever i liked, rather then restricted to a grid, which gave me more freedom for art design also. In conclusion i don't know which method to pick, i want to use a method which will be the most straight forward way to implement and wont give me a headache later on, preferably a method which has an abundance of tutorials and resources so i dont get "stuck" doing something which has been done a million times before! Let me know i haven't provided enough information for you to help me! Thanks in advance, Hugh.

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• How-To Backup, Swap, and Update Your Wii Game Saves

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Whether you want to backup your game saves because you’ve worked so hard on them or you want to import game saves precisely so you don’t have to work so hard, we’ve got you covered. Image adapted from icon set by GasClown. There are a multitude of reasons you might want to export and import game saves from your Wii including: saving the progress on your favorite games before sending in your Wii for service, copying the progress to a friend’s or your secondary Wii, and importing saved games from the web or your friend’s Wii so that you don’t have to bust your ass to unlock all the specialty items yourself. (Here’s looking at you Mario Kart and House of the Dead: Overkill.) Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? How To Use Layer Masks and Vector Masks to Remove Complex Backgrounds in Photoshop Bring Summer Back to Your Desktop with the LandscapeTheme for Chrome and Iron The Prospector – Home Dash Extension Creates a Whole New Browsing Experience in Firefox KinEmote Links Kinect to Windows Why Nobody Reads Web Site Privacy Policies [Infographic] Asian Temple in the Snow Wallpaper 10 Weird Gaming Records from the Guinness Book

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• Understanding branching strategy/workflow correctly

  - by burnersk

  I'm using svn without branches (trunk-only) for a very long time at my workplace. I had discovered most or all of the issues related to projects which do not have any branching strategy. Unlikely this is not going to change at my workplace but for my private projects. For my private projects which most includes coworkers and working together at the same time on different features I like to have an robust branching strategy with supports long-term releases powered by git. I find out that the Atlassian Toolchain (JIRA, Stash and Bamboo) helped me most and it also recommending me an branching strategy which I like to verify for the team needs. The branching strategy was taken directly from Atlassian Stash recommendation with a small modification to the hotfix branch tree. All hotfixes should also merged into mainline. The branching strategy in words mainline (also known as master with git or trunk with svn) contains the "state of the art" developing release. Everything here was successfully checked with various automated tests (through Bamboo) and looks like everything is working. It is not proven as working because of possible missing tests. It is ready to use but not recommended for production. feature covers all new features which are not completely finished. Once a feature is finished it will be merged into mainline. Sample branch: feature/ISSUE-2-A-nice-Feature bugfix fixes non-critical bugs which can wait for the next normal release. Sample branch: bugfix/ISSUE-1-Some-typos production owns the latest release. hotfix fixes critical bugs which have to be release urgent to mainline, production and all affected long-term *release*es. Sample branch: hotfix/ISSUE-3-Check-your-math release is for long-term maintenance. Sample branches: release/1.0, release/1.1 release/1.0-rc1 I am not an expert so please provide me feedback. Which problems might appear? Which parts are missing or slowing down the productivity?

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• How can I make video games if I don't like programming?

  - by hoper

  I am studying C++ code in my school (my major is computer programming). Honestly, my grades are not so good, and assignments are really hard. Sometimes I feel sad that I will spend 8-10 hours per day coding (which is stressful) in the future for my job. But I still want to make video games. Maybe this is the only reason why I am taking all of these stressful courses. I always write down plots, stories, characters, fictional gaming worlds... Once, I thought I should study artistic technology such as game design and not computer technology such as C++, C#, etc. However, most of popular game designers (or directors) such as Kojima, Miyamoto, etc. used to be good programmers. Companies actaully assign programmers to directors because they understand how to make a game. I've try to find other colleges or universities where they teach game design programs. However, one article that lists rank 10 game design schools in North America seems untrustful because the survey company only scores it from intervews of students. Once, I tried to attend Art Institute of Vancouver which is rank 7 according to that article. However, one programmer who used to be an instructor in there told me the truth: the employement rate of graduated students is low. How can I have a future making games if I don't like programming?

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